CMS picks Booz Allen as next Healthcare.gov systems integrator

Booz Allen Hamilton has won a contract to make sure all of the Healthcare.gov systems continue to operate smoothly with one another.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services awarded Booz Allen a $202 million contract to serve as Healthcare.gov Health Insurance Marketplace system integrator. The contract calls for a base year plus four optional years with the opportunity to continue support through July 2020.

In this role, BAH will lead system governance and technical coordination for the interoperable set of systems that comprise the Healthcare.gov marketplace, including those connected to several federal agencies and the state marketplace exchanges.

Executive Vice President Gary Labovich said Booz Allen’s experience in systems delivery make it an ideal match for leading the integration and interoperability of Healthcare.gov’s intricate system of systems.

“Successful systems delivery requires a broad range of technology capabilities, an intimate understanding of a client’s mission, and a sensitivity and awareness to the management challenges of organizational adaptation and adoption,” Labovich said in a statement. “This is the valuable differentiator that Booz Allen can offer our clients when we support their most important goals, such as ensuring access to affordable health insurance.”

Current Healthcare.gov system integrator Quality Software Services Inc., or QSSI, will continue to serve in the position until the end of October. QSSI was first awarded the contract in October 2013 in the midst of the federal health insurance marketplace’s disastrous first launch. In April, CMS extended QSSI’s contract through July 31 with an option to extend its service with a three-month phase out period for $23 million.

This week, CMS also extended another contract with QSSI for an additional eight months of quality assurance testing until March 31, 2016. QSSI is a subsidiary of United Health Group’s Optum, where current CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt used to serve as executive vice president — a connection that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Congress.

According to a release, Booz Allen is responsible for “system integration, release management, and environment management activities, as well as facilitating communication and participating in the change control process for Marketplace environments,” and delivering “new functions, improvements, or changes to the existing technology, processes and procedures to oversee and manage the evolution, integration, and operations of all Marketplace systems.”